


Perception Filter

by kuroi_atropos



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Dubious Science, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-02-01 06:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12699009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuroi_atropos/pseuds/kuroi_atropos
Summary: It’s a rare person that can see Kuroko Tetsuya when he isn’t drawing attention to himself. While he doesn’t know why, it’s just something that he took as fact. Is it any surprise that he is interested enough to follow a man that actually sees him?





	1. Chapter One

Kuroko Tetsuya had long ago gotten used to the fact that people overlooked him. He didn’t know why they did, but after years of having it happen again and again, it had grown far too exhausting to get upset at practically everyone in his life, including his parents and grandmother. He even began to embrace it, using his strange lack of presence in basketball and to find what amusement he could at making people jump. It also had the added benefit of weeding out people who were so fake they couldn’t be bothered to even try to notice him, leaving him with the few truly amazing people that cared enough to see him outside of their initial shock at his presence. 

If the result was that he clung to those few people who actually saw and recognized him, who kept looking for him to be there even if they couldn’t see him all the time, well… There were worse things than investing himself in his friends. He ignored the quiet voice in the back of his head that told him that maybe if he had been more proactive at that, he wouldn’t have hit rock bottom and lost his team the way he did.

While he knew enough about social norms to acknowledge that most people would likely find his attention annoying, he felt extremely lucky in the fact that those who reached that level of presence in his life tended to be just as odd as he was in their own ways, and thus put up with his quirks. And he’d gotten better at not being too clingy which scared people away before they really could be counted as friends.

Currently the people he spent the most time with and paid the most attention to consisted of the rest of Seirin’s basketball team and their coach. In a way, they acknowledged him even more than the Generation of Miracles had. They held him up as an integral, trusted part of the team and actually saw him as strong, not like at Teiko where he was an exception that proved the rule. 

Especially Kagami. 

The redhead just would not give up, which was what had drawn Kuroko to him to begin with. He had power, but there was a kindness there--even in his gruffness--that resonated. And he was persistent, too, in a way that the others at Teikou never had been. Even with as strong as he was, he never really changed when it came to working hard, to striving to be the best that he could be, and not just better than others even if that was a consequence.

Having a rock of faith like Kagami, combined with the unconditional love of his puppy and a team that believed in him made him feel steadier than he had in ages. Steady enough that he was looking forward even more to when they’d go up against Aomine again. Murasakibara and Akashi as well. It made him feel, that, he, Kuroko Tetsuya, the exception of the Generation of Miracles, actually had a chance of winning.

Now they just needed to--

He’d been too lost in his thoughts to notice the strange foreigner in a striped suit and converses until they were almost on top of each other. His eyes widened and he braced for impact as the man seemed to be paying an unhealthy amount of attention to a strange device made out what appeared to be an old phone and a bluetooth speaker in his hand. 

Then...nothing. 

Kuroko blinked as the man actually swerved as if he’d known Kuroko was there the whole time, even though ‘he’d been looking down. Then, to top it all off, he muttered a hurried, “Pardon me,” as he sidestepped and rushed past the boy, still focusing on the thing in his hand. 

For a few seconds, Kuroko just stood in the middle of the street, blinking as his mind tried to catch up with that. That man had avoided him...had actually seen him...while his attention had been otherwise engaged. That...had never happened.

Almost without thought, he turned to follow the man, glancing down to make sure Nigou was following.

It was only due to his training that he managed to keep up with the running man for the most part. Unfortunately, he lost the foreigner somehow near the hospital that Midorima’s parents worked at. Confused (and more than a little disappointed), he was only able to look down a few alleyways, Nigou sniffing around curiously behind him, before he needed a break. He eventually settled on a short wall that surrounded a flower bed, sipping the water from his water bottle that had been meant for his practice (he’d need to remember to refill it when he got to the gym). He eyed the crowd idly as he poured some water into a bowl for Nigou, happy that he had been on his way to weekend practice so that he had his normal small stash of dog supplies in his bag. 

The slightly out of the way spot was perfect to people watch and make sure that they had enough room to take a breath and stretch out as they recovered from their dash after the man. Kuroko kept eyeing the ebb and flow of the crowd, calming his own heartbeat and breathing as he pet Nigou and tried to see any sign that someone had just been disturbed by a wild gajin. 

After a while, his phone beeped, letting him know that he would need to rush if he didn’t want to be late to Saturday practice. While he still felt curious, it wasn’t worth upsetting the coach given his current lack of leads. 

He’d just stashed Nigou’s bowl back in his bag and was getting to his feet when he spotted something. 

It wasn’t the weird foreigner, or even a disgruntled person… It was a group of four kids, probably kindergarten age. And they moved...strangely. While one could sidestep something solo if needed, the others still swayed in the direction that any single one of them moved. 

And no one saw them. 

Normally, adults would always at least glance at small children, keeping an eye out for them. No one seemed to see this group though. They stepped aside when an adult hurried by, checking their watch and not even swerving. When the kids came to the streets, they didn’t look both ways or wait for the signal, and no adults eyed the roadway to make sure it was clear. No one unconsciously checked to make sure that the children were focused on their destination and not seeming to be sidetracked or lost. 

And now that Kuroko thought about it, the kids didn’t seem to be heading in a certain direction or looking for a particular place. Normally children that young were going on an errand for their parents and would be checking the stores for the right one, or be clutching lists, or any number of little things that these just...didn’t do.

Ultimately, Kuroko found them distinctly odd.

Then one of them glanced up, eyes flashing right over Kuroko like everyone else, except he was certain that the little girl's eyes glowed white. Kuroko perked up just a tad, and with a quick gesture to Nigou, started trailing the children. While he didn’t know for certain that the strange man and these not-children were related, it was an unusual coincidence that they happened to be in the same area, to say the least.

He slipped through the crowd, watching them. When one had to shift to avoid an obstacle, the others adapted so flawlessly to keep in their rough square formation that it seemed almost like it was in lockstep. It gave off the feeling similar to when Kuroko’s team ran together, except to an extreme. 

They really moved more as a single unit than a normal group of kids.

Kuroko felt all the more certain that this was the case based on the fact that their heads shifted side to side in tandem, their eyes locked on individuals as if staring through their souls in unison, and he was sure now, those eyes definitely glowed. All of them.

After about 30 minutes of following the kids (and he would have to think up an excuse for this with the Coach since he was now officially late), they seemed to hone in on something; a man that (to Kuroko at least) looked perfectly normal in a pressed business suit, briefcase clutched in his hand as he walked unhurriedly with the crowd towards the train station.

Kuroko frowned. Something really wasn’t right here. They semi-separated for the first time that Kuroko had seen, and if Kuroko didn’t know better, well, he was having flashbacks to the videos of hyenas circling their prey that they’d had to watch in school. What was worse, they used the same misdirection techniques that he himself would use to navigate the crowd, shifting carts of produce or shop signs or other things in certain directions so that people would subconsciously move out of the way. Before Kuroko could do anything, the man found himself pushed from the main flow of traffic and into a side alley. 

The man liked this about as much as Kuroko did, because he noted the approaching kids and paled a little even as he said something that didn’t carry to where Kuroko was. Kuroko felt his phone in his pants pockets, debating as to whether he should call the police, but knew that there was no way he would be able to explain his bad feeling without sounding crazy. Somehow ‘four 5-year-olds look like they’re about to attack someone and eat them’ didn’t seem to cut it. 

Whatever response, or lack thereof, the man received from the children, he turned and ran.

With a quick glance at Nigou, Kuroko clenched his jaw and darted into the alley after the man and the children. He got there just in time to hear a horrible, high pitched screech and to see a beam of light from the children’s eyes melt the man into a pile of goo. It happened in seconds. Somehow, Kuroko didn’t think the human body was supposed to react to anything like that. Then, to his horror, the kids fell on the mess that remained like it was candy. 

At least until Kuroko’s startled exclamation made them all lock their glowing, empty eyes on him.

If it hadn’t been for the hours of drills that he completed, and his years of experience dodging people who just couldn’t see him, Kuroko would not have been able to evade the beams of light that hit right where he’d stood. With a sort of morbid fascination, he watched as the ground liquified. 

Kuroko blinked once, grabbed a random piece of trash that he found at the side of the alley (a crushed beer can) and with as much force as he could muster, used an Ignite Pass to send it right into the face of one of the children. The can hit the boy’s head with a loud clang, and all the children blinked as if stunned, just as he’d hoped. It gave Kuroko enough time to dart back towards the mouth of the alley with Nigou. He heard that high pitched hum that he remembered had preceded the beam of light and, refusing to focus on the sheer absurdity of the situation, he made an educated guess and jumped to the right. 

Kuroko barely avoided the blast they’d leveled at him. Unfortunately, as soon as he was clear he heard Nigou whimper and his eyes flew to his puppy. 

From what he could tell, Nigou had darted after him and one of his paws had hit the melted cement, given the way he was tentatively trying to touch his front left leg down, only to immediately jerk it back into the air. Kuroko actually let out a hissed “shimata” as the kids focus turned on the dog. Kuroko quickly took in the new area he’d reached and immediately noted a dumpster nearby with a few pieces of trash had fallen by the side of it. He shot towards the pile and as soon as his hand closed around an empty Ramune bottle, he chucked it at one of the little brats. Then he bent down and grabbed everything he could, and followed that pattern. He didn’t miss a shot as everything from paper to more glass bottles and cans hit the kids dead on in the face, and he quickly noted that as long as one of them couldn’t see, they couldn’t seem to attack. 

Perhaps they were really a single entity? 

Kuroko was just starting to run out of ammunition when, quite suddenly, he heard another different, high pitched noise. It didn’t cause the same shudders up his spine as the other one that preceded the light beams, but he still kept his guard up as he went to throw another piece of trash (a crushed ramen cup). To his surprise, before he could release the cup, all of the children suddenly collapsed and silence fell. Kuroko blinked again before realizing that someone else had to be there, and he spun towards the mouth of the alley to see the strange foreigner from before, holding that odd device and another that looked like a pen with a glowing end. 

Well, that was useful. 

“Thank you,” he nodded to the man and quickly knelt by Nigou, who had limped over to him, and examined his paw. He was a bit worried about the germs that had to be on his hands, but he didn’t have time to wash them. 

“You’re welcome?” The man replied, sounding just a little confused. Kuroko decided to deal with him later (he obviously knew more about what was going on), but Nigou’s paw was definitely badly burned and was a higher priority on the high-schooler’s list. It looked like a vet visit would be in order, but for now he needed cold water to wash the burn. He crooned softly at his puppy and ran his fingers softly through his scruff, and Nigou’s sad whimpers quieted a bit. The dog’s blue eyes were big and watery and locked on Kuroko’s face, trusting him to make everything better. 

Kuroko hated himself just a little for getting the puppy in this situation. He didn’t bother looking up at the man, whose gaze he could still feel, as he assessed the situation and tried to comfort Nigou as much as he could. 

He’d emptied the water bottle from before, but a quick glance brought his attention to a series of vending machines across the road. He tentatively tried to figure out how to pick the puppy up without causing him more pain because the idea of leaving him alone, even to get more water, did not sit well with Kuroko. 

“Here.” The man held down an opened canteen and Kuroko quickly snatched it and poured the water from it on the burn, thankful he didn’t have to stop running his fingers through Nigou’s fur.

While he could try and get Nigou to the vet’s on his own, it would probably be difficult to navigate the crowd, tend to the burn, and comfort the puppy at the same time. 

The only solution: he’d have to call someone to bring more supplies and help him get Nigou to the vet. His parents were traveling for work and his Grandmother on vacation. Kagami was not an option due to being in America, and while his current teammates would probably all be willing to help, their enthusiasm could sometimes get the best of them. Running through his other options in his head, he settled on Midorima, only to blink as he realized that the canteen hadn’t run out of water yet, even though he’d been pouring it consistently for at least a minute. 

“Huh,” he blinked. That would be useful. He reached for the pocket in his bag that held his phone, but in the process of trying to shift things around, his petting of Nigou paused for a moment causing the puppy’s whimpering to sharply get worse and Kuroko immediately started again in reply. This would be tricky. Maybe he could jury rig some type of cold compress? He didn’t know if you needed to keep the water running or not with burns, but either way he needed to get Nigou to a vet and needed to call another person for that. His team jacket was synthetic and wouldn’t work in regards to holding water, but his t-shirt underneath was cotton, and would hopefully work long enough for Kuroko to get in touch with Midorima. 

He quickly shifted to try and slip his bag off without stopping either using the canteen and petting Nigou, but failed a bit. As he was trying to figure out how to get creative about all this, the man knelt by him and took the canteen. Kuroko nodded in thanks before juggling petting Nigou, dropping his bag, and pulling his jacket off. He shucked his t-shirt, quickly putting his jacket back on and zipping it closed against the mid-autumn chill, pulling his phone out at the same time with his newly freed hand. 

“Uh, not that I am complaining, but just checking - no screaming, panicking? Ahh, they just killed someone? Comments on the unending water? Nothing?” Kuroko looked up from trying to figure out how to best wrap his puppy’s paw with the shirt at the man who was scrutinizing him with a confused expression. 

“You took care of the threat?”

The man blinked. “Well, yeah.” 

The high-schooler nodded, going back to his shirt. Maybe tear it into strips? “You can’t…” he couldn’t help but meet the man’s eyes, “bring him back?” he asked quietly. It was a fantastical option, but this entire day had been odd. 

A flash of pain ran across his face. “No.” Kuroko looked down and picked at a loose thread that he’d been meaning to repair, it would make a good starting point. 

“Then the most pressing thing is Nigou’s injury,” he replied quietly, giving the man time to compose himself. 

It took the man a few moments before he chimed in with an almost whimsical tone, “And then? Because you’re either really well adjusted or you’re bottling all the screaming and panicking up, which in my experience in dealing with reactions to weird stuff is decidedly not a good thing.”

Kuroko frowned as he struggled to tear the shirt one handed, not wanting to lift the hand threading through Nigou’s fur. “Someone needs to tell his family. I saw his briefcase fall. That should have some information.”

The man tilted his head, “that’s… kind.”

Kuroko shrugged a little as he was finally able to rip his t-shirt. “Unless you have additional information, I see no reason to scream or panic.” 

“Nope, that actually sums the situation up nicely. Just one question: A man just got killed and you saw his briefcase fall?” The man asked, glancing over him again. 

Kuroko nodded idly, “I can at least spot that.” He soaked the strip of his t-shirt in the flowing water.

“Oy! What do you mean ‘at least’? I might not have been in range to stop them but I saw what happened. You were moving right quick when you spotted those Nixaleios transmorgaifying that poor guy. Seeing that detail is spot on!” Well, at least he had a name for the not-kids now. While he was talking the man had taken an end of the t-shirt strip to help him wrap it around Nigou’s paw without having to stop petting him. It was actually rather easy to work together as they secured the makeshift bandage and closed up the canteen.

Kuroko sighed, “I’m sure.” He tilted his head as he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. “Should those Nixaleios be moving?”

The man spun around quickly, twitching just a little. “Uhh…. Not so much, no.” All of the Nixaleios sat up at once. Kuroko quickly calculated his own strength and stamina relative to how heavy Nigou was, to the size and most possible strength and stamina ability of the man, even as the guy staggered halfway to his feet, swiping the phone-like device off the ground and that glowing pen appearing again in his other hand. “Run.” 

Kuroko jumped up. “Give me those and carry Nigou.”

“Huh?”

“My dog is heavier!” Kuroko snatched the two devices, and without a blink the other scoped up Nigou and they burst from the alleyway right as the fake-children pushed to their feet. 

“What do you need to do to stop them again?” Kuroko called as they rushed through the crowd, chased by that high-pitched whine. He didn’t need to look back to know those Nixaleios were after them. He scanned the area and quickly dashed towards a side street that would lead them to a park with an out of the way basketball court. He and the others had found it back in their Teiko days. It had been a semi-normal weekend hangout spot when they had wanted to just ignore everyone and shoot some hoops. Right now it had the benefit of being relatively secluded and sparsely populated.

The man followed closely behind him and kept up. “They re-wrote their communication algorithm to override the shutdown field I used, so I need to analyze the encryption pattern to figure out a new one!” 

“Can either of these do that?” He shook the devices as he dodged a couple of tourists that were so distracted taking pictures they didn’t see them to move. 

“Probably. I’ll need to reprogram it though! And I’ll need to get a receiver to analyse the new pattern!” 

Kuroko nodded, and after glancing around, promptly turned down another street. Two blocks later and they slid to a stop in front of an electronic shop, and Kuroko took a second to lean down and take a couple of deep, deep breaths. The stupid man was barely breathing hard. 

He leaned back up and carefully balanced the devices to the side of Nigou (who was eyeing him with big sad eyes) in the man’s arms. He resolutely ignored the sinking feeling in his stomach and told the man, “I’ll distract them. I’ll keep them in a park three streets north.” He tilted his head in that direction, and pat his wide eyed puppy once on the head. “Take care of Nigou!”

“What?” The man stared at him, looking a little incredulous, but before he could say anything else, Kuroko caught a glimpse of the reflection of one of the Nixaleios in a store front. He shoved the man and Nigou out of sight into the electronic shop and grabbed a furoshiki wrapped bento display from a street stall. After taking a moment to aim, he chucked the box right at the lead kid as it came around the corner. 

“Hey! You need to pay for that!” Screeched the proprietor, coming up to him with a sharp finger point, and Kuroko barely managed to shove them out of the way before the kids shot a blast at him, obliterating the wall behind where he had been standing. The woman screamed and the crowd around them panicked. 

Suddenly the man’s earlier question about screaming and panicking made sense. 

Kuroko quickly analyzed the crowd as if it was a basketball court, picking out the patterns and plotting his course. He focused as hard as he could on the kids, and making sure that they didn’t lose him darted towards the park. 

Generally Kuroko wasn’t that envious of a person, and accepted his own limits, but right now he would have killed to have even a fraction more of Aomine, Kagami’s, or any other athletes speed and endurance because it was everything he could do to stay ahead of the kids and their blasts while keeping them from hurting the rest of the unsuspecting and confused people around him. 

By the time he hit the park, his sides were heaving, and the only thing pushing back the sparkles and darkness encroaching on the edges of his vision was his sheer stubbornness. Luckily the park was pretty much deserted, and Kuroko quickly capitalized on that by drawing the kids to a grove of trees near the basketball courts. If he worked it right, he’d be able to dodge a little faster than the clustered brats and take advantage of the terrain to give himself breathing room. 

Kuroko lost track of how long he spent playing the worst game of hide and seek in his life, and that included the one when he was five when his cousins had forgotten about him as they played, and then his parents left him at the park for 3 hours because they forgot about him too.

Finally, though, Kuroko slipped up, weakling that he was. He didn’t quite lift his foot fast enough and it got caught on a root, sending him sprawling to the ground at an angle that nailed his head against a tree stunning him. The world spun worse than when he took Kise’s elbow to the face, or really any of the other injuries he’d gotten through his unique playing style. Which really sucked. In games, getting hurt like that would result in maybe getting pulled out to rest and a doctor’s visit. Now, all he could flash on was the puddle of goo in an alleyway that had once been a businessman. 

Would that crazy foreigner catch up before the kids attacked someone else? 

Would he bother to tell Kuroko’s parents what happened? 

His friends? 

Either way, Kuroko was going to meet his fate head on. He might have lost this fight, but he was going to go down with his head up, clawing every inch back from his opponents that he could. 

He pushed up to his feet, the world spinning around him and his head throbbing with his pounding heart to come face to face with the Nixaleios and their coldly glowing eyes. Kuroko had enough experience with head wounds and pushing himself to his limits to know that there was no way he was going to be able to stay on his feet if he tried to dodge. He’d already been out of breath due to exertion and at the end of his endurance… 

All he could do was stare the kids down as the hum started up, those eerie eyes brightening as they prepared to kill him. He wanted to curse that his patheticness would trip him up, again, this time with even worse results than when he couldn’t stop his friends from spiraling into a dark hole of apathy.

Would his parents and Grandmother cry? Would they even notice he was gone?

Would Kagami be able to beat his friends? Bring them back from the hard shells they had built to protect themselves from a world that only cared about their skills rather than their hearts? 

Would Nigou be okay with that weird foreigner? Would he make it home? 

He meet those glowing eyes, ready to accept the consequences of his failure. 

“Say cheese!” The strange man’s loud voice came out of nowhere, startling Kuroko and the Nixaleios, whose heads snapped towards the sound, but they weren’t fast enough to stop the man from doing whatever it was that caused them to collapse again. 

Kuroko stared at them for a moment before letting out a long, heavy breath, and he carefully turned his head slowly to the man, taking his time to ensure that he didn’t collapse to the ground. He blinked at the rather incongruous sight of the cheerful foreigner rocking back and forth on his feet, smiling and looking quite proud of himself. 

“Well, that was a close one, wasn’t it? Took me a minute to figure out how to get their new frequency and make sure I built in a self-sustaining alternating matrix to handle any changes they tried to make. Really should have done that the first time, but all’s well, right?” 

It was taking a moment for his world to re-align around not dying rather suddenly. 

“You okay, mate? Your head is bleeding just a bit, you know,” the man asked, and Kuroko blinked at him, wondering what was missing with this picture for a second, but his brain just couldn’t seem to make much sense out of things. And why were there funny, black-ish (they changed color) bubbles popping in on the edge of his vision?

“Um? Do you need a doctor? And like a proper doctor, not like me, because that’s me, I’m the Doctor, sorry, realized that we hadn’t introduced ourselves yet, but you know, a medical doctor? I know a great one if you do.” 

That reminded him, “Where’s Nigou?” He managed to ask before blacking out.


	2. Chapter Two

A loud beeping woke him up. Kuroko found it rather annoying, but not as much as the high pitched whine that preceded a blast of light from a bunch of creepy kids. 

Kuroko’s eyes flew open and he sat up quickly, only to immediately regret it when the world spun around him. He dropped back to the bed with an “oomph”, which prompted a large number of shouts of various versions of his name. 

The loudest though, was definitely a “Kurokoicchi!” that was cut off halfway by a gagging sound, and he opened his eyes enough to see Midorima pulling Kise back by the collar of his shirt. Thankfully as long as he stayed still, so did the room. Mostly.

“He suffered a head injury, you idiot! He does not need you shaking him further now that he has just woken up.” 

“But he sat up!” 

“Would you both just shut up and ask him how he is!” Came a slightly faraway voice, and Kuroko blinked in confusion. Was that... Kagami? But wasn’t he in America? 

Midorima sighed and released Kise, only to pick up a laptop that was set on a chair and set it down relatively gently on Kuroko’s lap. It took him a minute to recognize that yes, it was indeed Kagami looking at him worriedly through a video messaging window. 

“Ask him yourself, I am going to see what is taking the nurse on duty so long to get here now that Kuroko’s vitals changed,” Midorima scowled as he stalked out of the room. That left Kuroko alone with Kise, Kagami over video-chat, and strangely, the coach, who was somehow still miraculously asleep on the chair. 

“Evil carrot...“ Kagami hissed before he focused on Kuroko. “How are you doing?” 

Kuroko was about to answer with ‘fine’, but a poorly timed, high pitched beep from one of the machines around him had him glance quickly in that direction looking for glowing eyes, so he paused. Was he fine? He remembered some pretty crazy things. There were kids with glowing eyes, laser beams that disintegrated people, and a crazy gajin that saw him while he was distracted. 

And his head felt really sore, if he was willing to actually feel the pain. “My head hurts,” he finally stated. 

Kise made a high whining sound, and Kuroko kind of wanted to throw something at him to make him quiet down. That was not pleasant at all. 

“Oy! Shut up, you twit!” Kagami snapped. “You’re making Kuroko’s head hurt more!” 

“But it has to hurt him really bad if he’s even willing to admit it!” Kise practically wailed, which, unsurprisingly, was enough to actually wake the coach up.

“Kuroko-san!” She said once she blinked to full wakefulness. “How are you feeling?” 

That question was going to get extremely annoying very quickly. 

As if to save him from answering the question, Midorima came back into the room with his Father and a nurse. 

“Hello, Midorima-san.” 

“Kuroko-kun, it’s been a while,” the man smiled. “I wish it was under better circumstances.” The last time Kuroko had seen Midorima’s parents had been a school festival towards the end of their final year at Teiko shortly before that last, horrible game. Come to think of it, before then it had been a while too.

Even if for a good chunk of Junior High they’d all been so close that they’d constantly visited each other’s houses, the last quarter of their third year had been a struggle for them all to be together. It had gotten to be almost painful how they’d made attempts to keep up the motions, as if grasping at their fast fading memories of when they’d all been happy. They’d still had study groups, played video games or watched movies together, but they’d done a lot of it more publically, actually going out to restaurants or movie theaters rather than meeting at someone’s house, or had hung out instead of going to practices (those had been the worst). Now that Kuroko looked back on it, perhaps they had made those adjustments unconsciously. It was easier ignore the small important things like feelings when you constantly had distractions in front of you.

Kuroko gave as much of a smile as he could to the man. Midorima-san had always been kind to them all, had welcomed them all into his home and taken great joy in gently teasing the lot of them. “It is good to see you, Midorima-san. Thank you for taking care of me.” 

“Always so polite,” he mock glared at his son, “unlike my overly direct child. You should start coming over more often again. Hopefully you’ll rub off on him!” Midorima crossed his arms and looked out the window, feigning disinterest. Midorima-san laughed a little as he walked up to the bed, Aida-san quickly snatching the laptop out of the man’s way while hissing something at Kagami. The man glanced over all the machines that the nurse was attending to with a professional, asdf, look before focusing on him again.

“Now, how’s the head doing on a scale of 1 to 10? 1 being mild and 10 being the worst physical pain that you’ve ever felt? Feel free to round up, I remember when that guy accidentally knocked you down the steps and you walked here with a sprained ankle and didn’t complain once.” 

He pulled out a penlight and flashed it in Kuroko’s eyes, watching the reaction closely. “A 4, Midorima-san. The dizziness is worse.”

“Are you dizzy right now?” 

“No. I was when I sat up.” 

“Hmm,” the man glanced at the nurse who quickly showed him something that she had transposed from the machines to a chart. “Can you try to sit up now, slowly though, please?” Kuroko complied, and was happy when the world stayed mostly where it should, and stabilized fairly quickly after he sat for a moment. 

“It’s better.” 

Midorima-san smiled, “Good! Hopefully most of the dizziness was because you’d been lying down for a day.” He gestured to the nurse, who quickly pressed a button that raised the back of the bed to a halfway sitting position and helped Kuroko settle against it. 

Kuroko blinked. “A day, Midorima-san?”

The man nodded, waving two fingers and Kuroko tracked them with the man watching carefully. “Yes, what do you remember about how you ended up here?” 

Kuroko debated how to answer. The truth, well, the truth would probably be a little inconvenient. Though this was certain to cause him problems as well. “I remember a gajin and a flash of light.” 

A small crease appeared between Midorima-san’s eyebrows, “Can you tell me what you were doing so near the hospital? From what your friends told me you should have been at basketball practice. Unlike the rest of my son’s slacker friends, you tend to not miss that.” Midorima snorted and Kise whined, while the coach smiled brightly at Kuroko like he’d won something, which… he was too tired to figure out. 

“Nigou ran after something so I chased him,” seemed safe, as he wanted an answer for that too. “Does anyone know where he is?” 

The coach quickly jumped in, sounding slightly worried, the grin on her face changed to a small frown. “The team is taking shifts hanging out in the waiting room and looking for him, but they haven’t had much luck so far. It doesn’t help that they’re not letting people anywhere near where the gas explosions were, just in case.” 

Kuroko blinked. “Gas explosions?” That was decidedly not what had happened…. 

“Hmm,” Midorima-san noted idly, “yes, there were a series of gas explosions that were superheated and…. Well, quite a few people were hurt, one poor man, he didn’t make it. He was…. Well...” 

Was liquefied. By child-like things. 

Not... “Gas explosions,” he said again disbelieving, and everyone nodded, even as Midorima-san and the nurse kept poking at things and checking his head and vitals. Kuroko sighed. Well, it was as good an explanation as any, and had the added benefit of not making him sound crazy. 

“I’d like to get a CA-” Midorima-san was promptly interrupted by the door, which had been partially closed, being thrown open to bang against the wall by the weird foreigner from before bursting into the room. 

“THERE YOU ARE!” The man was grinning madly, his trench coat swinging around him and he was rocking on his toes before he leaned out of the room. “Martha! Jack! I found him!” The stranger practically bounced over to Kuroko and through sheer force of personality chivied Midorima-san and the nurse away from him (no small feat, considering). “I was worried when you passed out! I hope you don’t mind that I dropped you here for a bit until I was able to get Martha. It was a bit easier than carting you to the TARDIS without making the bump a bit worse. Head wounds are tricky that way.” The guy looked down at him quizzically and Kuroko found himself blinking in shock for the umpteenth time that day. 

“Did you hit your head and lose the ability to speak?” The man tilted his head. “If you did we can figure out a way to work with it, didn’t get your name when everything went down and Martha might have questions.” 

“Pardon me,” Midorima-san cut in, a sharp glare on his features. “How did you get in here and why are you harassing my patient?” 

“Through the door, obviously, and getting him better medical attention that will take care of him rather than ask stupid questions.”

“That one was actually a valid one though,” came an amused female voice from the door and Kuroko glanced over to see a pretty woman standing in the door, a rather large first aid kit propped on her hip. “Patients generally need rest, not to be hounded.” 

“There were all these others here first! And I wasn’t hounding!” The man snapped defensively, and the woman just arched one immaculately shaped brow. 

“Right,” she walked into the room and held a hand out to Midorima-san. “Dr. Martha Jones, I’m sorry for us bursting in, but I was asked to consult.” Her eyes flicked over to the weird man for just a moment, but it was enough for Midorima-san to pick up on. His son definitely got his observational skills from him. 

Midorima-san inclined his head, not putting down Kuroko’s chart or the pen he had been using to make a notation, he gave the barest perfunctory shake to her outstretched hand. “Dr. Takashi Midorima. I appreciate your concern over young Kuroko-kun here, but I assure you he is in good hands. And I do not believe you are authorized to be in here.”

Her smile sharpened. “I’m sure he’s in great hands, I just happen to have experience dealing with-” her head tilted, and Kuroko could see her trying to translate whatever the odd stranger had told her to something that was not odd but that also did not contradict whatever had already been concocted. 

Out of sympathy for her plight, he helpfully chimed in, “Gas explosions.”

She broke her stare off to smile at him, “Gas explosions. It’s actually a bit of a specialty, actually.” It was Midorima-san’s turn to raise an eyebrow. 

Her case was not helped by the man immediately plopping on the bed and poking at the heart monitor stuck on his finger while trying to derail the conversation. “Oh good! You can still talk! Not that we wouldn’t be able to still find some way to communicate about all the stuff that you notice, like sign language! I love sign language with all of the...signs.”

Dr. Jones smiled wryly before meeting Midorima-san’s eyes. “Honest! I’m just here to make sure he checks out from the gas.” He seemed to soften just a bit, and then the weird man spoke again. 

“Yes! Gas, nasty stuff, in this case melts people and such. Glad someone explained it all. Now, really, not many people run towards danger to help people like that! Want to do it some more?” 

His friends made various screeching noises that amounted to ‘What?’ Kuroko sighed as Kise joined the guy in piling on his bed, only to be yanked off by the coach and Midorima-kun in perfect tandem. Somehow he wasn’t surprised, and he could already hear Kagami’s rants through the Skype connection. This would be just like when Kagami got into him about helping those kids that were being picked on by the Meijo Academy team. 

“He will most certainly not be doing that,” Midorima-san snapped. “He has a head injury and he needs a CAT scan given how dizzy he is. What he does not need is you jumping on him, sir. While Kise is a child, you are not! You’d think you’d have more sense than that! If you do not get off of that bed this instant I will call security!” He spun on Dr. Jones, “And while I appreciate whatever ‘help’ you might be trying to provide, given your association with this man and lack of properly presented credentia-” 

“Midorima-sensei! I am glad to see Jones-sensei and Smith-sensei found your patient!” came yet another excited voice from the hallway, and the latest visitors to Kuroko’s now rather crowded room were a man in well pressed, very nice suit and another weird gajin in a large coat (though this one looked quasi-military). Kuroko was more than half tempted to see if anyone would notice if he left, but he still felt slightly dizzy when he moved his head too fast. 

Also, the odd man did not seem like a “Smith.” The name seemed almost too… plain for him. He needed a name filled with double meanings, intent, and hints of the sheer differentness underneath their normal exteriors, like the Kiseki no Seidei. It felt like a lie to call this man something so simple as “Smith,” as his sheer force of presence was already bursting past it, drawing all the attention in the room to him with 

“Kuragowa-sensei?” Midorima-san glared. “You know who these, individuals are?” 

“Ah, yes! They are from the Government, in regards to making sure that anyone hurt in the gas explosions are taken care of.” 

Midorima-san did not look convinced, and replied rather calmly. “As his parents appointed me his medical proxy until they can return, I will need to see some ID.” 

‘Kuragowa-dono’ made a scandalized sounding gasp, but the Japanese doctor did have the sudden, sharp attention of all three foreigners. Maybe if Kuroko eased away slowly enough? He was just a little dizzy, and that could easily be from lack of food, as he didn’t have the throbbing or anything else that was associated with a concussion. 

“Of course!” The new man stated (his accent distinctly American in comparison to the English sounding ones of the first two) pulling a folded piece of leather that he quickly flipped open to reveal a badge of sorts, complete with a photo ID. Dr. Jones was right behind him, and the first man pulled his out as well after checking a few pockets. 

Except unlike the other two, his was completely blank. 

And for some odd reason, Midorima-san didn’t comment on that, merely nodding resignedly after examining all three documents. 

Kuroko’s eyes narrowed. Didn’t anyone else notice the paper was blank? He looked around, but even though Midorima, Kise, the coach, the Nurse, and the administrator were also at angles that they could see the blank document, none of them commented. Huh. 

He glanced away from his friends to see the man looking at him, his grin even brighter, if that was possible. “Oh, so you noticed that too, hmm?” 

That question drew all the attention in the room back to him, and Midorima-san quickly shook his head, before smiling at Kuroko again. “Ah, sorry Kuroko-kun, I didn’t mean to ignore you there.” 

Kuroko just looked at him. “Well, if it’s fine with you consulting Doctors, he is still a bit dizzy even though he isn’t showing signs of a concussion, so I was going to up his fluids, as well as order a CAT scan, and-” Kuroko promptly tuned out the medical jargon that Midorima-san started spouting. Only the nurse and Dr. Jones actively paid attention, though Midorima had his eyes narrowed as he followed along with his father as best he could. 

The administrator had a few quiet words with the stranger in the great coat before stepping out unobtrusively, and the Coach was holding Kise still with one hand and balancing the laptop to whisper something to Kagami with the other. Kise was pouting a tad, but waved cheerily at Kuroko their eyes met, making him look like a puppy starving for the attention. 

“Ah, Dr. Smith.” If there was a question on the man’s name, no one picked up on it. Well, not like anyone besides Kise and the man in question were paying attention to him anyway. “Where is Nigou?” 

“Oh, no worries! Sorry, should have said something! I dropped him off at the best vet in all of time and space. Man owes me for a thing with a penguin. Well, 2 penguins. Well, 2 penguins and some jewels. Long story really. But he’ll be right as rain quite soon, and I’ll be happy to give you a lift there to pick him up since it’s a bit out of the way.” 

Kuroko had the feeling that ‘out of the way’ was an understatement, though he wasn’t sure why. 

“So, Nigou is okay?” The coach asked, shoving her way over, hearts in her eyes. “We were all so worried when we couldn’t find him and he wasn’t at Kuroko’s!”

“Quite,” Dr. Smith smiled, a soft expression on his face as he looked at her, and Aida grinned, before thrusting the laptop at the Doctor.

“I’m going to go tell the others and call off the search! I’ll be right back!” She rushed out. 

Hmm… 

So had a soft spot for kids? Puppies? Or maybe both. Probably the puppies since Nigou had been taken to ‘the best vet in all of time and space’ while Kuroko had been dropped at a hospital until the man could return. 

Kuroko held his hands out for the laptop silently and the man quickly handed it over. Kuroko managed a slight smile at the look of worry on his light’s face. “I’m fine, Kagami-kun. I am sorry to be a bother.” 

“You’re not a bother, idiot. ‘Sides, I knew a shadow wouldn't go anywhere his light couldn’t follow.” Kagami said quietly, and almost instinctively started a fist bump action before looking a little ashamed, and Kurko let his grin grow a tad before fist bumping the camera. “You are such a dork.” Kuroko made a slight hmm noise that was definitely not an agreement, but it made Kagami laugh. “Listen, I got my parents to move up my flight, so I’ll be back the day after tomorrow.”

“You didn’t need to, I am fine.” 

“Yeah, too late.” Kagami got a particularly determined look on his face, and Kuroko knew enough about picking his battles to not argue. “Anyway, now that you’re awake text me updates every little bit, okay?” 

Kuroko nodded, he would definitely do that as soon as he could find his phone. 

“Great. Now the coach said they wanted more tests, let me know how they turn out?” Kuroko nodded again. “Awesome, no more explosions, Tetsu-kun! At least not without me there to pull you out, got it!” 

Before Kuroko could nod again, Kagami did something that shut the connection off on his end, and Kuroko sighed before gently shutting the laptop. He looked around for a place to put it, only for Kise to practically snatch it out of his hands. “Let me take that, Kurokoicchi!” He had a bright grin, and Kuroko tilted his head in thanks. 

The American man who had come with Dr. Smith quickly leaned around Kise and beamed at Kuroko, “Hey, Kid. Name’s Captain Jack Harkness, and you are?” 

“Jack, no,” Dr. Smith interjected quickly.

“It’s just hello!” 

“Do we need to start this again, really?” 

Kuroko was just about to interrupt when the ‘discussion’ across the room exploded, the quick rhythm of their jargon reaching a terrifyingly quick pace and a truly painful level of volume that had him cringing. 

“Alrighty then!” Dr. Smith interrupted the two healers, smiling and clapping them both on a shoulder before stealing Kuroko’s chart. “Now I was only paying a little attention, but it sounded like we wanted another head scan and then to run some bloodwork to see why his results were wonky, right?” 

“In layman’s terms that’s close enough,” Dr. Jones stated dryly. 

“Well then!” The man pulled that glowing pen like device out again and buzzed it over Kuroko, once. “How about you have him get his head scanned and I can get his results all printed up, and we can argue with a bit more accurate data than this mess.” 

Before anyone else could say anything, Dr. Smith flounced off with a wave over his shoulder for Kuroko and Captain Harkness right on his heels. 

Midorima-san sputtered for a moment while Dr. Jones rolled her eyes resignedly, but Kuroko found himself quickly being wheeled out for a CAT scan. 

XxXxX

The Doctor bounced to the TARDIS console even as Jack saddled up behind him. 

“Kid’s a little young, isn’t he?” The impossible man asked as the Doctor pulled up a readout of the scans from his screwdriver. 

“What? Why does his age matter compared to what he is?” He asked distractedly as he pursued the data in a bit more detail. Normally he didn’t need the readout to understand the results of his screwdriver’s scans, but there was something just a little off about the boy and the way attention slid off of him, so he didn’t want to miss even the tiniest thing. “You’re the only human that is actually getting up there to a decent age.” 

“His age matters because he can’t legally consent to running around the universe with you,” Jack sighed. “Rose was a teenager, but at least she was nineteen and could actually make that choice.”

“Huh?” The Doctor looked up. “What does Rose have to do with Kuroko?”

Jack sighed, “Well, given that you seem pretty gung ho on the kid, it feels like the responsible thing to do to tell you to wait until he’s 18 before dragging him off.” 

“It would only be for a few tests, I mean his əbˈskyo͝orədē is way too high, look at it!” He points out the line to Jack, but the man just crosses his arms and looks at him. The Doctor scowled, for all that Jack was one of his few companions that could keep up with him on a lot of technical things, he didn’t get why some others were so interesting. 

“Right, see he was able to see things that most of you humans just miss! And he didn’t freeze like an idiot! Jack it was incredible, the way he just actually helped and didn’t run screaming. If that isn’t worth solving a mystery or two, I don’t know what is.” 

Jack tilted his head, “Look, I know he’s got a good personality and he’s cute, but-”

Suddenly the lightbulb went off in his head and he interrupted the man. “Oh eww… No, Jack. I mean, yes, he’d be a great help on an adventure or two, but just no. He’s a kid! Practically a baby!”

“Really?” The man asked. “You’re acting quite a bit like you did around Rose, you know.” 

“Really?” He thought about it, “Eh, maybe. The kid is fascinating, he’ll be something great one day to be sure. But I am really more interested in why he is like a walking, talking, natural perception filter.”

“What?” Jack asks, and finally there is that spark of interest that means the human is getting why the Doctor is so fascinated. “Now that you mention it, it was a bit hard to pick him out in that room, even with him being the only one in the hospital bed.” 

“Like I said, his əbˈskyo͝orədē is off the charts for a living being, but there is nothing I can see that explains it.” He hand waved at his screen. 

Jack stepped forward and looked at the screen, “so the əbˈskyo͝orədē is-” 

“Why perception filters works,” Jack raised an eyebrow, but didn’t look away from the scrolling data, “oh honestly, how is this one of the gaps in your knowledge?”

“Well, generally I just call it a psychic field, but I’d love to learn more if you’d like to explain it to the dumb human.” 

The Doctor rolled his eyes, “Don’t you start that. It’s the type of energy that the perception filters on the Tardises give off. It’s completely artificial, there is no way any living creature should be generating it!”

“It can rub off though. I mean look at Torchwood’s elevator. You parked in one spot often enough that I have a permanently invisible entrance to my secret underground base.” 

“Eh, not so much permanent. It’ll only last another 182 years if I don’t park there again.” 

“182 years. Great. I’ll put that in my calendar.” 

“But anyway, it’s not living! And it required repeated exposure, and even then it’s not generating the energy, so much as just letting the energy there dissipate.”

Jack finally finished reading through the screen (for all that they weren’t stupid, even the exceptional ones still sometimes took a while to process information) and turned to him. “You’re right though, I can’t see any reason why he’d be giving the energy off. The only thing that I can see different with him is that he’s got a bit of an underactive thyroid and some resultant health issues from that going undiagnosed.”

“Exactly!” The Doctor waved at the screen again. “The kid is in pretty good shape and could keep up with me but he was exhausted from it! It makes no sense! Still that should have no impact on the əbˈskyo͝orədē generation! It just… makes no sense!” 

“Could it be artificially induced somehow?” Jack said, pulling up a window on another screen and using his Torchwood access to pull up information on the boy. The Doctor didn’t bother to stop him, but it was all normal. On its own that was fascinating enough, but didn’t help answer the question at all.

“I thought of that, went back through his timeline looking for anything that would cause it, but nope, he was just born this way.” 

Jack was flipping through something, “What about getting it from his Mother? The Father’s history is completely normal, but she’s an orphan with no family history, and he does take after her, appearance wise, a bit.” 

The Doctor waved his hand, “That woul-” he stopped. “Well, maybe.” He quickly pulled her up. He’d already had the TARDIS looking at her in relation to the boy, so it wasn’t hard to expand that a little. “Hmm,” he scrolled through. “You might be onto something there. She’s got a bit of what he does, from what I can tell. I mean, I’d need to see her in person to make sure, but… It’s possible?” 

Jack sighed. “Glad I can be useful.” He paused, “Speaking of one sec,” Jack pulled out his cell phone and texted Martha a screenshot of the data on the kid’s thyroid. “Better let Martha and that other doctor know so that they can start treatment.” 

“Oh, right! Good call.” The Doctor nodded. “They can take care of that while we look at the Mother.” He looked at Jack. “You talk to this one, I don’t want to get slapped.” 

Jack sighed, “We’ll be asking questions about her parentage and her kid. I don’t want to be either.” 

“Well, in the name of not getting slapped I’m not stopping you from sweet talking this one, so it’s entirely up to you.”

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose, sometimes it was so hard to tell if the Time Lord was being deliberately dense or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe that I had Jack Harkness as the voice of reason.... 
> 
> As far as the switching between Japanese/English honorifics (like the Dr. and/or Sensei) I figured that some of them are pointed, like when Martha specifically calls out "Doctor" as part of her name, which would have stuck as suck, same as when Midoriya's dad replied the same, since he's probably dealt with English speakers before, but when it is just people talking, the Tardis naturally handles the translation into whatever form people are used to hearing.


End file.
